At the root of all disease, including heart disease, all cancers, and all auto-immune disorders, is inflammation. The closer we eat to nature, the happier and better our bodies will respond, thus treating us better.

This article is by Maura Knowles of Mac-n-Mo’s Morselicious Treats, a healthy baked goods company.
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At the root of all disease, including heart disease, all cancers, and all auto-immune disorders, is inflammation.

What is inflammation?

Swelling, inflamed tissue. Our body protects itself by sending additional blood supply to an injured area to protect it and enable it to heal. This additional blood engorges the surrounding tissue, resulting in inflammation.

This works well in an acute condition or sprain type injury. Think of a time when you sliced your finger and the area around the cut got inflamed. It’s the natural beginning to the healing process. That’s a good thing.

Then think of chronic inflammation, when our bodies are constantly inflamed due to a poor diet or chronic condition, for example. Not good.

How do we get rid of inflammation?

We can begin to reduce it by consuming a low inflammation diet, exercising, and reducing stress.

Think of yourself being under constant stress, never allowing yourself time to de-compress. NOT good for the inflammation factor.

Deep breathing, taking a walk, stretching, laughing, getting enough sleep, spending time with loved ones contribute to reducing stress, cortisol and inflammation. WIN/WIN!

What is a low inflammation diet?

Think of eating a rainbow of produce every day. I teach a workshop on this very idea.

If we consume every color of the rainbow in REAL food every day (skittles don’t count), we are very close to getting all the micro and phyto-nutrients our bodies need. In addition, we will have less room for the white processed junk, like white bread, pasta, rice, pastries, cookies, cakes, and sugar, which all spike our blood sugar, causing inflammation.

Do you see a connection? A rainbow connection? 😉

Think: more color, more NATURAL color, more fiber, more nutrients, more plant-based foods.

Do your best to consume high ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) value antioxidant foods. ORAC is food’s antioxidant activity.

Here are just a few examples:

Red: tomato, beets, rhubarb, radish
Orange: pepper, carrot, sweet potato
Yellow: squash, pepper, lemon
Green: kale, broccoli, spinach, zucchini
White: onion, cauliflower, garlic, jicama
Blue: corn, potato, moon watermelon (from Japan)
Indigo/Purple: cabbage, eggplant, cauliflower

The closer we eat to nature, the happier and better our bodies will respond, thus treating us better. What’s in YOUR rainbow?

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